[sgarland]

As a sibling comment said, what maintenance? The only problem I’ve ever had with any Mac was a bad keyboard on my M4 MBP, and that showed itself so quickly that even without AppleCare it would have been covered.

Between work and personal, I’ve had an Intel Air, 2x Intel Pros, M1 Air, 2x M3 Pros, and an M4 Pro. My wife has an M1 Air. My in-laws have an M3 iMac. My mom has… some version of an Apple Silicon laptop.

That is a decent amount of computers stretching over many years. The only maintenance required has been the aforementioned keyboard.

[whatever1]

My shift button popped off my M1 MacBook. Apple judged it was my fault. Guess the repair price. Yes almost full laptop price.

If that had happened to any other laptop I would be able either replace just the broken keycap, or just the keyboard.

And no, apple care+ that covers accidents is not cheap either at $150/year.

[ajross]

Oh, come on. Laptops are mobile devices that live in bags and backpacks and they break all the time. I've had more laptop failures than cracked phones, even. You absolutely need an answer for "what happens if my screen gets cracked", just ask any college student. Windows junk is cheaper, it just is.

In pre-college education, the answer is often "use any other junky Chromebook from anywhere in the world", which is cheaper still.

[sgarland]

Maybe you need a better backpack? I’ve had zero cracked screens. I’ve also never cracked my phone screen, though, so there’s that.

I did drop my watch last week, and the second hand fell off, though.

[ajross]

The very existence of the Genius Bar falsifies your point, though. The fact that you, personally, are exceedingly careful about your devices isn't an argument against the clear truth that (1) the rest of us yahoos clearly aren't and (2) macs are expensive to repair.